


Trust

by punch_kicker15



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 16:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7322710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punch_kicker15/pseuds/punch_kicker15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Season 4: It's all about trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

Giles wrote, _Zylstrax demon. See also: venomous saliva,_ and crossed the demon’s name off the list. That was the last cross-reference from Burnham’s Watcher diary. After double-checking the entries, he sat for a moment, tapping his pen against the table. It was strange to be out of tasks to work on, instead of lurching from crisis to crisis as he had for the last few years. 

He looked across the room. “Willow, do you have the Technopagans’ latest spectral activity database?”

Willow closed her spell book and glanced at her laptop. “Not yet, sorry. Ever since they started embedding videos, the files have been huge. I’ll have the text downloaded and printed out for you in just a min--” Her voice cut off in a yelp. “Crud. My laptop just crashed.”

She tapped a few keys, then opened the case and started tinkering with it in that diligent manner of hers. She sighed and closed the laptop. “I need to call the Mac store. The chip burned out.”

He handed her the phone. 

“Hi, the chip in my PowerBook burned out.” She scrunched up her face in concentration. “Um, January 1997. Oh, great, I'll bring in right now.” She handed the phone back to him.

Giles reached for his wallet. “Do you need any money for repairs? The computer fell in the line of duty, after all.”

Willow zipped up the laptop case. “Nope. The chip just squeaked under the three-year warranty, so they’ll fix it for free. Do you need the database right away? I can try one of the computers at the lab first, if it’s urgent.”

Her accommodating tone sent a stab of guilt through him. His sense of urgency came from the crushing boredom of the last few months that left him desperate for any new reading materials, not from any immediate crisis. “No, it can wait.”

“Ok, I’ll be back once it’s fixed.” She finished packing up her computer and hurried out.

Giles put away the diary and index and tidied up the desk. After rummaging through a drawer, he headed for the bathroom.

Spike twisted towards Giles as much as the chains would allow. “It’s about time. What does a vampire have to do to get some blood around here--” Then he saw the stake. “Oh, it’s like that.”

Giles moved a few steps closer to the bathtub. “It’s all about trust, Spike. I can’t trust your chip to keep working indefinitely. And I can’t trust you to tell us when it stops working.”

Spike grinned. “Of course not. Evil, y’know. Glad one of you lot finally noticed. Can you at least take the chains off first?”

“No.” Giles plunged the stake into the vampire’s chest, and watched it disintegrate. The chains clanged down in a cloud of dust. There was equality in death for vampires: William the Bloody reduced to dust just as quickly as the lowliest fledge.

Giles pulled the chains out of the bathtub, and then trailed his hand through the dust until he found the chip.  He fished around in his pocket for a handkerchief and carefully dusted off the chip. Willow might manage to learn something from it.

After washing his hands, and placing the chip in a desk drawer, he sat down in front of the television. For some reason, he just couldn’t get worked up about the idiots on _Jeopardy_! He returned to his desk and picked up the diary and index. It wouldn’t hurt to triple check the entries while he waited for Willow to return.


End file.
